The Killing Floor (34 page)

Wendy

Wendy plants a final long, deep kiss on Toby’s mouth and breaks away with a gasp.

“Wish me luck,” Wendy says, pulling on the gas mask.

“Be careful, babe,” Toby tells her. “We’ll have you covered.”

“I love you,” she tells him, winking. “It’s show time.”

She touches the Bradley’s instruments lightly, as if saying goodbye to an old friend, and climbs into the passenger compartment. Toby is already dropping the hydraulic ramp and she keeps moving, exiting at a crouch with her police-issue Glock in her hand.

A rifle pops to her right and a hopper flies skidding and tumbling across the asphalt. Wendy turns and sees Todd running toward her, pausing to shoot at distant targets. She points at herself and then Ray. Todd gives her a thumbs up and pats his rifle. He will cover her.

They parked the Bradley in front of a strip mall housing a Thai restaurant, dry cleaners, flower store and 7-Eleven. Across the parking lot, side street and another parking lot, Ray lies with his back against his truck, thirty yards from the office building from whose windows someone shot him, triggering this whole mess.

Her plan is simple—at least, once she reaches Ray Young. First, she just has to run a hundred yards through Hell.

Wendy starts running.

Bullets rip past, taking her breath with them, tracers flashing red in her eyes. Someone shrieks in pain. A fireball blooms in the distance, a single figure making his stand with a flamethrower at the center of a circle of scorched, blackened ground. Over the constant thunder, she hears the
ping ping ping
of Toby’s AK47.

She dodges a hopper thrashing howling on the ground, pausing to glance over her shoulder. Toby and Steve lean out of their hatches firing their rifles, while Todd paces her on the left. A hopper comes flying at her and the pistol bangs in her hand, the bullet hitting it midair and sending it tumbling lifeless against the side of a mailbox.

She does not have far to go now. Wendy puts her head down and launches into a final sprint.

As she approaches Ray, a pair of hoppers land in front of her, hissing and waving her away.

“Screw you,” she says, shooting one in the head, then the other.

She hops over the bodies and holsters her gun, looking down at him.

“Officer Saslove,” Ray greets her.

The man kneeling next to Ray turns and glances at her through his faceplate flecked with blood. “You’re taking a chance being near him with just that gas mask,” he says, his face pale.

“I know,” she tells him, crouching so her eyes are level with Ray’s.

“Good to see you, honey,” Ray tells her.

“You need to stop this right now, Ray.”

“I won’t let them hurt you.”

“You shouldn’t let them hurt anyone.”

“Too late for that.” He chuckles. “Whatever you think is best, Ray.”

“I thought you came here to save us,” she says. “You can still do that.”

“What do I care?” Ray answers, his eyes blazing. “Nobody ever gave a shit about me. My old man was right. Hit them before they hit you.”

“Does that include me?”

Ray smiles. “No, not you, Wendy. I would never let anything happen to you. See all these people? None of them are innocent. But you are. You remind me of how things were.”

Wendy turns and gazes with longing at the Bradley, where Toby and Steve and Todd are still shooting. She wishes they could all drive away together. Find their island. Try to be happy and forget this long nightmare ever happened.

He pats the ground next to him, and adds, “Sit with me for a minute. Tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself. Don’t worry about all this other stuff.”

Foghorns boom in the distance, getting closer. The juggernauts are coming.

“Please stop this, Ray.”

“It’ll be over soon. It really is good to see you again.”

She remembers her promise. Hates herself for making it. Hates the world for making her do it.
It’s not fair.

But it’s meant to be.

“I need you to do just one thing for me, Ray.”

“What’s that, honey?”

She raises her hands and takes off her mask. Lets it slip between her fingers.

“I want you to save me,” she tells him.

Ray howls like a dying animal.

“
NO!
”

“Save me, Ray.”

Then she turns, surprised, as a woman staggers out of the office building at the edge of the parking lot in a cloud of dust, firing a rifle back at the open doors through which she exited moments earlier.

Anne? Anne, is that you?

Wendy shields her face as the front of the building erupts and the Demon comes spilling out snorting with crashing wings, clawing up the asphalt.

Todd

Todd shoulders his carbine and fires. The little corpse skids to a stop against his boots and he leaps over it, shuddering in disgust. Its erect stinger continues to stab at the ground. Even dying, Todd knows, these things are a threat.

A massive roar rends the air, vibrating deep in his chest. He turns and sees Wendy crouched next to Ray, while Sarge and Steve run toward her from the Bradley. Beyond Ray’s truck, a woman retreats from the office building, shooting into the massive dust cloud billowing from its collapsing face.

Anne.

It was his idea to pursue Ray and try to bring him to the authorities based on the theory his body might contain a new strain of the bug. His theory was simple: If Ray infected others using spores, weren’t those spores evidence of Infection? Evidence that could be used to isolate a pure sample of the organism? A pure sample that could be used to produce a cure?

Sarge and Wendy agreed. When they found Dr. Price and the soldiers, Todd felt overjoyed. Excited. Vindicated.
This is it
, he believed.
The moment we win the war. We will look back on this day and say, “This was when the tide turned.”

Then Anne shot Ray and destroyed what could be mankind’s last hope.

Cruz is dead; he can see her body from here. He heard Noel scream just moments ago. Someone fires from Yang’s position, but Guthrie has disappeared. Ray is shot and possibly dying. The soldiers are fighting for their lives.

They died for an idea. Todd grew up with the proverb that the road of good intentions is paved with the dead, but had never truly understood it. Now he does.

The dust cloud rolls outward from the building like a massive wave. Todd catches a glimpse of a hideous thing inside the cloud, a massive horn jutting from where its eyes should be, bellowing in pain and rage. He knows what it is.
Demon.

Todd raises his rifle and fires into the dust. On his left, Sarge and Steve start shooting.

Run, Anne
, he wants to scream.
Run as fast as you can.

Anne stops running, throws down her rifle, and pulls out her Springfields, making a stand against the monster.

She is firing both guns as the dust cloud rolls over her. Then the shooting stops.

She can’t be dead
, he reasons.
She can’t be killed. It’s impossible.

Nearby, juggernauts stampede through the auto dealership, crashing through the vehicles with tentacles waving, flinging cars and glittering clouds of safety glass into the air.

It’s over. We’re dead.

He watches them come. As much as he hates them, they really are quite beautiful.

Ray

As the dust cloud flows over him, turning the world brown, Ray asks Wendy if she believes in second chances.

“I’m living proof,” she says, glaring into the dust with wide-eyed fear.

“What about you, Doc? Do you believe in second chances?”

“I believe in redemption,” the man answers.

The scientist has stopped treating him. Ray knows he is dying.

“Me too,” he says, blood spurting from his mouth.

He believes in second chances. He believes in redemption. He just wishes it mattered.

When you know you’re going to die, not a whole hell of a lot matters, even saving the world.

He thinks about what Fielding, the government agent, said when he realized he was doomed:
I don’t give a shit about the world if I’m not in it.

“Ray, please,” Wendy says, tears streaming down her cheeks. “It’s not too late.”

He smiles, remembering the vision of Anne Leary firing her guns as a massive shadow swept over her, just as the brown cloud covered them both.

I won. I beat her.

“There’s nothing more that I can do,” Price tells him.

“Too bad it’s not enough.”

“Are you going to kill me now too?”

“No, I’m not going to kill you. At least you tried.”

“I want redemption,” Travis says. “I want that just like you. I also want to live.”

Ray closes his eyes. “Bingo.”

Wendy squeezes his hand. “Ray, you can still make things right.”

His eyes flutter open and he takes in her beautiful face, wet with tears. He can hear Sarge and Steve calling her name in the swirling, blinding dust.

The Demon roars, drowning out their voices.

The rage is gone now, spent. Ray feels calm. He knows what is coming, and accepts it. And he finds he does care what kind of world he leaves behind.

“I remember,” he says. “You want me to save you. All right. I can do that.” He closes his eyes and whispers, “Go.”

“Where?” Wendy asks him with alarm. Then she understands.

The children of Infection are leaving. The gunfire slackens off as the hoppers retreat into the forests surrounding the town. A group of them hiss at her as they lope past, bounding over the truck and disappearing.

The soldiers are cheering.

“You did good, Ray,” Wendy says. “You did real good.”

Ray’s eyes shift to the scientist. “You’d better get my blood or whatever it is you need, Doc. I don’t think I’m going to be around for much longer.”

Price scrambles for a syringe. Ray watches the man tie a tourniquet around his bicep, wipe the inside of his arm with an alcohol pad, and plunge the needle in.

“Ow,” he says. “Wendy, I hope you’ll stick around for the cure. You got your whole life ahead of you with that jerk boyfriend of yours.”

Wendy smiles, fighting tears.

“I got a sample,” Price tells him, holding up several vials containing Ray’s thick, dark blood.

“Hell, you can have more if you need it. Take it all. In fact, I can do even better, Doc. Do you want to see Infection? Would you like to meet the little bastard?”

He pulls the cut remains of his T-shirt aside, exposing his ribcage, and touches the pink bump on his side. The mound of flesh vibrates happily in response.

“Meet the enemy,” he tells them.

“My God,” Price says, clearly fascinated.

Wendy says nothing, eyeing it with revulsion.

“This is where I was stung. See? Instead of a hopper, a new me grew out of it. This is Infection, Doc. Take it. Cut the little sumbitch out. Do it now before it’s too late. Before it changes my mind.”

“I’ll kill you if I do that,” Price says.

“Dead already,” Ray says. “ I want to see you do it. I want to see us win.”

“All right,” Price says.

“I already know you got what it takes, Doc.”

“I’ll do it.”

“Wendy, reach into my pocket and give me a cig, will you?”

She finds his crushed pack of Winstons, puts a wilted cigarette between his lips, and lights it. Ray inhales and spits it out, coughing and spitting blood.

“Lousy day to have to give up smoking,” he says.

“I’m ready when you are,” Price tells him.

“Tell everyone about today,” he asks. “Tell them I did good.”

The dust is settling; he can see the sky, and it has never looked so blue.
The earth abides. Yes, it does. And death is the biggest sucker punch of all.

He tightens his grip on Wendy’s hand and fixes his stare on her face.

You are my reason, Wendy. My second chance. My redemption.

You remind me of the way things were.

“Don’t cry, honey.”

“I’m sorry, Ray,” she says, wiping her eyes. “I can’t help it.”

“Do it, Doc.”

As the scalpel approaches his flesh, the lump flutters with terror, as if trying to escape.

Ray screams during the cutting.

By the time the operation is done, he is dead.